Last summer a couple friends and I took our teenage kids and cycled across the United States from Seattle to Portland, Maine, and I can tell you the hardest part wasn’t doing it. The hardest part was getting to the starting line. The adventure of cycling every day for two months in strange, beautiful places…

“Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.” – Stephen King A performance goal is when you want to perform well. You want to shine. You want to be brilliant. You want to people to applaud. You want to be amazing. You…

“In a nutshell, advice is overrated. I can tell you something, and it’s got a limited chance of making its way into your brain’s hippocampus, the region that encodes memory. If I can ask you a question and you generate the answer yourself, the odds increase substantially.” – Michael Bungay Stanier Recently, I had a…

In brief: A lot of attention has been placed on micro-learning, but adopting new behaviors requires practice not simply memorization. Micro-learning must include micro-practice. Learning design must ask the learner to practice new target behaviors consistently over time in order to build a new ingrained behavior. We can only act our way into a new way…

Most of us move through the day without recognizing the alternatives we have and actively deciding among them. As a result, we give up the feeling of control and mastery to mindfully create options and then select among them. – Ellen Langer, Ph.D. I keep thinking lately that these are the good ol’ days. Right…

“It’s easier to act your way into a new way of thinking, than to think your way into a new way of acting.” – Jerry Sternin How do we help someone learn something new, or attempt something difficult? Instead of adjusting rewards and incentives, or scaring people with negative punishments, try changing the environment. Disney’s…